Great Lakes Chemical Corporation history

In 1946 a geologist and Wall Street financier named Charles Hale became the largest shareholder of the McClanahan Oil Company, and later assumed its presidency.

In May of 1950 the two companies merged to form the Great Lakes Oil & Chemical Company.

Charles Hale agreed with McBee and in 1957 authorized the sale of the company’s oil properties in California.

The company changed its name to Great Lakes Chemical Corporation on May 9, 1960, and continued its reorganization process by attempting to diversify into financial services.

The venture was unsuccessful, however, and was discontinued in 1963.

In 1969 Great Lakes Chemical purchased the Cavedon Chemical Company and the Microseal Corporation, in addition to Lunevale Products Ltd. of Lancaster, England.

Great Lakes Chemical only lost 2% of profits; the increased use of unleaded gasoline during the late 1970’s forced the company to de-emphasize production of ethylene dibromide.

In February of 1976 Great Lakes Chemical agreed to form an American joint venture with Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann called the Forex Chemical Corporation, which was established to develop fire extinguishing compounds.

The company nearly doubled its brine reserves near El Dorado, Arkansas when it purchased the bromine operations of Northwest Industries’ Velsicol subsidiary in 1981.

One of the areas Great Lakes Chemical chose to expand was biotechnology, and in 1982 took control over the Enzyme Technologies Corporation.

In September of 1983 Great Lakes Chemical purchased the Inland Specialty Chemical Corporation for $10 million.

In April of 1985 Great Lakes purchased Purex Pool Products for $20 million.

In the same year, Great Lakes purchased a 15 percent interest in Huntsman Chemical Corp. and an additional 25 percent interest in January 1987.

In 1989, Great Lakes acquired a 51.15 percent interest in Octel Associates and its operating company Associated Octel Company, Limited, for $198 million.

Great Lakes’ bromine capacity represented 20 percent of the world’s supply in 1992.

In 1994, Emerson Kampen stepped down due to serious medical complications and was succeeded by senior executive Robert McDonald as chief executive officer and by board member Martin Hale as chairman.

On May 22, 1998, Great Lakes spun off their petroleum additives business as Octel Corp (NYSE:OTL).